Mechwarriors
by LilacFree
Summary: Fifth Doctor era: after the events of 'Kinda', Tegan and Adric aren't exactly best pals. Now they're stuck in a space craft together, and not too happy about it.


Mechwarriors, a Fifth Doctor era story with Tegan and Adric. I do not own Doctor Who or anything else, really, according to my debt analysis. Some of the dialogue and situations in the beginning are taken from the episode 'Kinda'. Thanks to ponygirl for mad beta-ing luv.

* * *

1. Conversations While Waiting For A Bomb

The Dome squatted in the midst of the luxuriant green jungle like a planetary pimple. Tegan thought it looked prefabricated and a little chintzy. In short, it looked reassuringly human, and Tegan had had enough of alien jungle, alien wind chimes, and aliens violating her dreams and possessing her body for one day. She was glad to wait here. The Doctor had gone off to deal with whatever else was going wrong. Truth be told, Tegan hadn't paid good attention to the Doctor's rushed description of their latest disaster. She walked and talked and yet felt that her face was like a mask and she couldn't quite see out the eyeholes.

The Doctor had tasked Tegan to look after the other walking wounded, Adric, whose attempt to pilot the thought controlled Total Survival Suit had not turned out as the boy had hoped. He had been shaken by the experience, but as he recovered his equilibrium he lost his patience.

"You realize, if he makes a mistake, this dome and everything for miles around will be blown to pieces?"

Tegan didn't admit she hadn't been paying attention. Adric didn't need any encouragement to treat her like a primitive. She'd like to see him try to build a fire in the Outback. Of course, the way her luck usually ran, it would turn out that fire building was an integral part of being a math whiz.

"Yes, but there's nothing we can do except wait." She didn't like the way he was examining the explosive charge on the wall.

"I could dismantle it!"

"Don't touch it! Leave it alone." Adric was chomping at the bit to do something. It's not that Tegan didn't sympathize, but when enthusiasm was fondling a bomb, it scared her. She'd better distract him. "So it's a vehicle you can control with your mind? That device you came out of?"

"Yes. I've never used tech like that before. The TARDIS has telepathic circuits, but of course it's far more sophisticated than that crude device." Adric sounded wistful instead of scornful.

Tegan figured he must have wanted to drive it since he saw it. A giant robot suit thing was bound to appeal to an adolescent male. The Doctor had been quick to guess the identity of the inexperienced pilot inside the TSS.

"It would be even better if it were a plane you could fly with your mind. It would be like you were flying on your own."

Adric stared at her. "Plane?" His voice was uncertain. Tegan had had the lecture about the TARDIS' translation circuits, and occasionally idioms did not cross over well.

"I told you what an air hostess was. I also have some pilot training, for small aircraft. But it's expensive to have your own plane. I can't afford it on my salary..." Tegan bit her lip. Money didn't mean anything in this life. She felt embarrassed to mention it, on top of sitting around uselessly waiting for the Doctor to save the day.

She hated that! It was only a tiny comfort to hear Adric the genius complain of the same thing. It did give her a warmer feeling for him. Tegan had done a few mad things before realizing that she was likely to make things worse than better.

Then he blamed _her_ for everything, and her sympathy faded. She'd been taken over by the Mara. Tegan hadn't done anything. How could it be her fault?

"It found a weakness, and it used it." Adric used that lofty, superior alien to inferior human voice that she hated. Tegan hated it even more than the tiny voice in the back of her mind that said she had given in: it _was_ her fault.

Maybe it was that little voice that made her answer back. "What's that supposed to mean?" She wasn't angry—yet. Not much.

"Well it would seem to prove that some of us have more control over our minds than others."

Adric sounded just like the Doctor at his most stuffy and tiresome. He was also two seconds away from getting slapped. "Oh, like you, I suppose, out there in that machine." Tegan seized on her chance to do the needling.

Adric swung around on her, glaring. "That was different!"

"Hmph." Tegan folded her arms. "You were scared out of your wits."

Adric confronted her. She could see fear behind the anger in his eyes. That's what this was all about, two scared people waiting to be destroyed or rescued. Wasn't she supposed to be the adult here?

They might have really lost their tempers if the Doctor hadn't showed up. From that point on, it was established that Tegan was a weak-willed primitive and that Adric was reckless, arrogant, and entirely lacking in tact.

So maybe she shouldn't have climbed into the space fighter with him. It happened not long after they left the Kinda world…

* * *

2. The Science Of Running Away

Adric had expected to like the Jangsi. They had acquired space travel and were exploring beyond their solar system. It reminded him of his own people, now hopefully traveling home to Terradon on their repaired ship. Such a people should be dedicated to science: the knowledge that makes it possible to exist and travel in space.

The Jangsi liked science, all right, especially science that made things go boom. They were on the look out for more primitive worlds to conquer. Disappointment did not hinder Adric's feet. The TARDIS had landed them in a docking bay of the Jangsi mothership, a huge hulking thing that wallowed through space ferrying the Jangsi fleet of short-range military craft.

The Jangsi might be violent, but their ship was well designed. He hadn't been in this area before, but he was sure he could find the best route back to the TARDIS. They were supposed to meet the Doctor and Nyssa there. "This way!" he told Tegan. Why couldn't it be Nyssa? He didn't wish Tegan ill, but he liked Nyssa better and if they were caught it would be by the clatter of Tegan's ridiculous shoes. Their only virtue appeared to be that their color matched her outfit—oh, right, that was also ridiculous, for her ridiculous menial's job that she never shut up about.

"I thought you knew where you were going!" Tegan complained.

"We haven't been caught yet, have we?" The tramp of Jangsi military boots sounded cadence not far away and coming closer. Tegan and Adric both dove for the nearest hatch. Of one mind, they knocked into each other's shoulders. There was no time to do more than glare before closing the hatch behind them. The hatch led into a docking bay that held one of the Jangsi fighter craft.

Adric keyed open the cockpit. It was designed for two humanoids. "Well, come on! We can't go back out into the corridor and they might check in here. There's no where else to hide."

The fighter looked like a great place to hide. The ports were tiny so they could see out but not be seen inside. The seats were ergonomically designed. Adric got comfortable. Five comfortable minutes later, he was bored. He was glad he couldn't see Tegan fussing in the other seat. He wished he didn't have to _listen_ to her. On the other hand, if he couldn't see her, she couldn't see him.

Tegan fretted, her eyes glued to the view port that gave her the best view of the hatch. It opened. Two Jangsi stepped into the hangar and consulted a display on the inside wall next to the hatch. Adric took a deep, shaky breath. The Jangsi seemed to argue with each other briefly. The display showed purple and green lights. One Jang banged a fist on a purple-lit area and the second gesticulated in the universal symbols of unwanted advice. The purple light stayed on, but an amber light started blinking. The first Jang touched the amber light, which was then replaced by a series of symbols. The two then stepped back out into the corridor and the hatch closed again.

"So what was that all about?"

"I think this fighter is due for maintenance. That would explain the purple lights," Adric offered. "They must have gone on to a working craft."

"Is it safe to go out? They've gone on." She peered out the view port again. "There's a purple flashing light by the hatch now."

"It's probably a sign that this fighter can't be used. That should keep anyone else from coming in. We'll be safe here for a while." Adric sounded preoccupied.

She heard rummaging from the back seat... if it was a back seat. The vehicle did not have a clearly designated fore and aft. Tegan had been wondering if it was an integral part of the design or merely alien thinking.

The Jangsi were what she privately thought of as 'human' aliens. They looked very human, impossible to tell from the Earth version by visual inspection. Adric and Nyssa and the Doctor fell under this category. Then there were humanoid aliens, those with some odd bits; bipedal aliens who had the same basic body frame, and full-on aliens, who could look very odd indeed.

Tegan always wondered how different their minds were if their bodies were so similar to hers. She wondered this privately, as asking questions like this tended to get an impatient reply from the Doctor, mockery from Adric, and a patient, understanding answer from Nyssa. Tegan adored Nyssa, but there were moments when being patiently understood made her want to scream.

"What are you DOING back there? Don't think I can't hear you fooling around."

"Some of us possess a spirit of scientific inquiry," Adric replied in lofty tones.

Tegan mouthed, 'some of us are smart-arses.' Anyway, he'd cribbed that off the Doctor. "These controls look sensitive to me. You oughtn't experiment with them. You'll do something to draw attention to us."

"Sensitive? What, their feelings get easily hurt?"

"This is a fighter craft. You can tell by the way the panels and controls are laid out. And there aren't many of them, so they're meant to do a lot with just a touch. You have to have quick reaction times in air combat. Or space combat, I should think."

"And what would you know about that?"

"I've never piloted a fighter, but I've been up in them. Beautiful machines. Maybe crude by this standard, but I always wanted to fly one."

"Like you flew the TARDIS?"

That was deliberately provocative. Adric, while the Master's prisoner, had programmed the TARDIS so that Tegan thought she was flying it whereas it had really been remotely controlled. Adric knew perfectly well it was a sore point for Tegan.

"We're supposed to be hiding, Adric, not fumbling about with alien technology."

"What if there were an emergency and we needed to do something in a hurry?"

The instrument panels lit up. The engine hummed to life. "Adric! Whatever you did back there, undo it!"

"I didn't do anything!"

* * *

3. Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out

It was embarrassingly true. Adric had to admit that what Tegan said about the controls sounded sensible, and he'd kept his hands to himself while arguing with her.

"Ow!" His exclamation mingled with Tegan's cry of pain. Something had burned into the top of his head, and then punched at the side of his neck. He could feel his body becoming both strangely heavy and relaxed, settling into his chair. A purple light flashed on his panel, and he felt his seat elevate slightly. The light slowly faded from purple to green.

Then he became aware of the data seeping into his brain. The hangar had been depressurized and the hatch that led out into space was irising open.

"The ship's systems think we're the operators, Tegan. They're trying to establish a direct interface with your brain. Can you feel what's happening?"

"What? Yes... oh, yes!" The ship's attitude thrusters fired on the hangar side, and they tumbled sideways into the void. Adric could see the mother ship and the other fighter craft streaming out of its sides just as they were. Theirs was the last. It wasn't damaged after all. Their entry into the cockpit must have registered the craft to the system as a crewed fighter.

"We've got to join the others. Rendezvous at coordinates 70,0,212." Tegan's voice was crisp and efficient. Adric could sense how they were neatly queuing up with the other craft proceeding in formation to the rendezvous point.

So this was a mission for many ships. They hadn't been personally detected--yet. There should be mission parameters--ah, THERE.

Combat exercise. A list of simulated munitions drew attention to itself. He was the strategic operator, managing overall objective and resources. Tegan was in the position of tactical operator, who performed primary flight and combat functions.

Their craft performed a neat loop and twist, and came to relative rest at their assigned coordinates. He could feel satisfaction that was not his, and realized that the system had connected him to Tegan. Being aware of each other's physical and mental condition was a necessary function of the dual pilot configuration. Tegan did not seem panicked or aware of any weirdness. He would have expected rebellion or complaint from the hot-tempered Earth girl.

"Tegan? You do understand what's going to happen, don't you?"

"Mission parameters: novice combat support level position. Provide suppressing fire to cover main attack thrust." She sounded like she knew what she was talking about.

That was a first. Adric tried to get through to her. "I mean to us. You don't think you can fly this thing, do you?"

"I did, didn't I? Adric..." her voice faltered, "It's in my mind, isn't it?"

He shouldn't have said anything, not after what had happened on the Kinda world. "It's mechanical, Tegan. Information, like a book reading itself for you. You're in charge."

"Right." She took a deep breath. "There's a signal. Report combat ready status."

"Reporting," he said, and a green light flashed three times on his panel. Adric wondered what use the manual controls were if he had a thinking cap controller on his head. That must have been a micro laser datalink that drilled into his skull. Yes. And life support functions were attached directly to the large veins of neck and groin, and into the trachea.

He shuddered. A purple indicator glowed to life on his main display panel. This was far more invasive than the simple Total Survival Suit had been. When he tried to understand exactly how everything worked, his physical senses became disoriented. The purple light intensified and started flashing.

"Adric? Don't worry. It's just a war game. There's no live ammunition, and we're flagged as trainees. Everyone will be avoiding us expecting us to make dumb mistakes. All I have to do is not crash into another craft, and there's plenty of space out here. Can't you feel it? Reach out." Her voice was soft and cajoling.

'Reach out'? How much more vague could Tegan get, even for a primitive? "Reach out to what? I've got a perfectly good plot of all craft and navigational hazards within a light second--which is the spatial boundary of the mission, by the way. It's sort of a rectangle. One light-second in length, a half light-second in depth and width." The data stream became more manageable and Adric felt in control again. He reached out to the flashing light and tapped it; it turned off. Touch sensitive. Simply being in the craft when the operation began must have caused the flight deck system to recognize them as operators.

"Maybe you're not configured the way I am. I... I'm out in the open. It's wider than any sky could be." Tegan's odd deep voice was trembling.

"It _is_ space," Adric pointed out reasonably.

"I'll say. You should see the stars. Yes, you have the same capability in secondary mode... if only I... if you... there's a way," she said distractedly. The mission was about to start. An amber light came up on Adric's control panel and he tapped the spot.

Stars. Endless stars in endless black. The plot he had of all obstacles made him look for the other craft, but he could not see them, not even the mother ship, which was far greater in size than these dual cockpit fighters. "Tegan, did you move? I can't see anyone else."

"Not yet," she said calmly. "3, 2, 1, commencing run up to primary attack formation point."

The starfield wheeled around Adric's vision and his stomach lurched. Something minty tasting sprayed the inside of his mouth and he swallowed reflexively. The other craft were too far away to be seen, of course. _Everything_ was too far away. The starfield steadied and remained still as Tegan settled into the correct vector. He should be able to bring back the plot. Adric's brain felt like it was tying itself in knots, but the plot appeared superimposed over the starfield. The nausea settled.

"You all right back there?" When Tegan spoke, a lavender light blinked on his panel.

"Of course," Adric said, trying to project confidence. Anything Tegan could do, surely he could do. After all, he understood what was going on. He belonged to a space faring race. Hers didn't know aliens when they met them. The light kept blinking.

"You just don't seem well. Are you sure?"

He tapped the alert light and went out. "Yes, fine." Adric wanted to ask, incredulously, if Tegan really thought she knew what she was doing. Aside from her nervousness about the mental intrusion, she was taking this all in stride. Probably she had an easier time because she was hardly more than a savage and the computer handled all the thinking. _He_ could handle his own thinking, better than any machine. Adric 'reached out' again.

Abruptly, his mind was filled with space. He could sense the positions of their teammates, and the nearness of their duty station. Adric shrank back into his chair, and the lavender light blinked on again, then stopped as the image was replaced by the cockpit display and the real-time data feed in his head, comfortably organized in logical, mathematically based computer files. He could handle that fine. Let Tegan handle the rest if she liked it so much. And she did like it, so very much. In fact, the intensity of her enjoyment was making him a little uncomfortable.

* * *

4. Reserve Dogs

The duty station was a patrol sweep. The patrol group of six fighters could not afford to gain too much acceleration in any one direction and moved in choreographed orbits so that their sensors covered all directions.

It felt like being a dog chained in a back yard. She could feel the continual grinding of the momentum loss. Tegan mulled over the possible attack vectors. They were an ambush force, set to flank the enemy when they were engaged and had their attention on the main force. The battleground was a predetermined area in space with goal zones. Each team had to protect their goal zone and attack the enemy's goal zone. The victory went to the first team to reach the enemy's goal.

"Requesting initial ordinance load." What? That was her voice, and she wasn't even sure what she'd said. The hands Tegan suddenly remembered she had clenched on the controls, and she lost her sense of where she was even as she regained her sense of self. That is, of her human body. Her cockpit lit up in a blaze of purple. Ice trickled into her veins and tried to grab at her wildly beating heart.

"Tegan, it's Adric. Calm down. You were doing fine. Just… just use your instinct. You're a pilot, right? It's just a big game. We'll be fine. We won't get hurt."

"You're drugging me?" She could feel it, the chill surrounding her heart and forcing it to beat more slowly.

"The system is supposed to keep you functioning at your peak. You were having a panic attack. I don't know why, you were flying perfectly well."

The touch of scorn in Adric's voice brought a smolder of anger to balance the ice water feeling of the sedative that had been pumped into her. "Better than you could."

Adric didn't reply right away. Tegan watched the purple lights blink for her attention, then fade as she touched them in acknowledgement. It was almost instinctive. If she didn't think about it, it was easy to interact with the system. That is, she couldn't think about being someone who'd flown nothing bigger or faster than a Cessna. That had called for hand and eye coordination, and foot coordination for the rudder pedals. She'd thought that had been as close as you could get to being the plane, that kind of seat-of-the-pants flying.

This blew it out of the water. She was scared how much she loved it.

"You've got a talent for it," the boy admitted, though his tone sounded grudging.

"It's… it's fun. It's everything I ever wanted flying to be." Tegan relaxed into the welcoming arms of the flight systems. She was going to enjoy this while it lasted.

The system had extensive data on the makeup of their forces. Although the two teams were both Jangsi, they had different mission profiles. The team commanders had considerable choice in customizing their forces. The database offered him speculations on the makeup of the enemy, based on available tech and the past track record of the command team. He could even look at the algorithms on which the analyses were based. Frankly, they were a little crude.

A flashing blue light on his panel yielded a team wide update. "First contact with enemy, section 90, 46, 130. That's the other side of the battlefield. Sounds like a probe." Adric considered the data offered him and started his own analysis.

"They might be trying to draw attention away from their true strike objective. A distraction. A feint." Tegan sounded pleased to have come up with that word, but she was basically restating the computer's suggestion. At least she comprehended what the computer was telling her, Adric had to give her that.

"They could attack through our patrol sector. I think we should shut down and drift back towards our goal zone. We could let them pass us then attack them from the rear."

"We'd uncover our patrol area. Our sensors would be down and we're supposed to be support, not strike. You think they'll come in hard over here, do an end run?"

'End run'? Sometimes Adric wondered if Tegan could actually speak her own language correctly, but the idiom was not that hard to grasp. "It makes perfect sense, mathematically, for the distance involved, and taking into account the forces they'll encounter where they're probing now. Our patrol couldn't stop the main assault head on."

"You're the genius. Convince the rest of the patrol."

"Initiating local comm—uh… we can't, Tegan. They'd find out we're aliens. They might even think we're spies. We've only exchanged prearranged codes. If we change the communication mode, they'll know something is wrong."

"Are there any codes that cover this?"

"I'll try to string some together."

Adric tried to convince the rest of the patrol. Some of the codes he received were rather rude. No wonder Tegan took to this craft, this race was mentally akin to hers, and as slow and temperamental.

"They won't believe me," he said in disappointment. "I suppose it doesn't really matter to us which side wins this stupid exercise."

"I guess not," Tegan said wryly. "Look on the bright side, Adric. If we all get flagged destroyed, you'll know you were right."

"I suppose so, but it's stupid. They're stupid. Why are so few people intelligent? I like intelligent people, like the Doctor, and Nyssa…" Adric's survival instincts kicked in too late, but Tegan laughed instead of getting angry.

"And you don't like me? Fair enough. I don't much like you, either. Maybe I could do more with my brain if I tried, but you were born a genius and I wasn't. Having it brought up to me constantly is not pleasant."

"But you are a good pilot," Adric offered, feeling rather guilty for once. It was true Tegan couldn't help being born in a primitive society.

"I bet the Doctor could do this with one … one lobe tied behind his back."

"What, one lobe of his brain?"

Tegan chuckled softly, one of the most pleasant sounds he'd ever heard her make. "The expression is a hand tied behind the back. But this craft is not very hands on."

"He is over seven hundred years old, you know. Naturally he knows a lot and has done a lot. The Doctor is always learning new things."

"I didn't know. Seven hundred. He doesn't look a day over—oh, hell." Blue and purple lights blinked to life on their displays, and their awareness filled with the enemy fleet's approach.

Adric was right. He was right about two things. The main assault was coming through their patrol zone, and this was just a game. They wouldn't be hurt. But the excitement of battle was filling him, filling them both. Heavy fire came in on their patrol group. They would be out of the game very quickly, unless—"Tegan! Can you pull this off?" Without conscious calculation, he projected his idea.

"Do it!" The words were only window dressing to the real communication taking place through the ship's systems. Fire streaked in at them, Tegan dodged with seeming clumsiness into the path of fire instead of away. She fired the missiles that Adric had designated, multi-war head explosive rounds.

He had to explain it to Tegan afterwards. Behind the scenes the simulators were taking care of it all. The incoming virtual fire exploded the virtual missiles. As planned, Tegan was already flipping the craft to put it on a course that would carry them past the enemy. The explosions happening behind them masked her single thruster burst. Tegan and Adric shut down all power systems except minimal life support, and the master simulation computer told the enemy computer that they were a kill along with the rest of the patrol.

They drifted past the enemy fleet headed towards their goal zone. Meanwhile, Tegan and Adric were heading towards the enemy goal zone, only verrrry slowly.

It didn't take long for Tegan to get tired of waiting. "So they think we're dead, and we're not… so what? We would last two seconds popping up to attack from the rear."

"At least we'd take a couple of them. We couldn't miss."

"Our vector is completely wrong. We're running away from them and they're running away from us."

Tegan wouldn't have known the numbers if they'd been shouted in her ear, but the numbers said she was correct. The last enemy craft passed them, and once they were out of close sensor range, Adric risked a communications link to their forces. "Our side's in retreat. We've been told to report back to base as soon as the exercise is complete. Look at our forces, they've got no one in position who can stop the enemy."

"They're not our forces, it's not our enemy… just a game, like a big soccer field only in three… dimensions. Adric? I think we can win."

"What are you talking about, Tegan?"

* * *

5. Because It's There

Tegan stared at the plot. The tactical computer wasn't helping her now with new ideas. They were just expected to drift there until it was time to head back to the mother ship with everyone else. If she knew fighter jocks, they'd have bets on and they'd come in ragging each other and getting out the liquor from their hidden stashes. She and Adric would probably just be on the run again. Even if they made it back to the TARDIS without the Jangsi catching them, the Doctor would be furious.

And Tegan would never get to fly like this again. "We might as well. I'd rather try something than just head back to base with our tails between our legs."

"Might as well I what /I ? Tails between our legs?"

"It's just an expression! Look, there might not be any of them between the goal zone and us, and they think we're dead. Why should they worry about blocking us? Any rear guard they have will be looking for live targets. Do you think they'll spot us lighting up the thrusters?" The command impulse to make the craft I fly /I quivered in her mind like reins holding in a horse ready to run.

"You mean the ones who just passed us? Their primary sensors will sweep forward. You know… it could work!"

Adric's enthusiasm was the last bit of encouragement she needed. Tegan laughed exultantly and let loose her steed. The thrusters fired at full throttle the craft surged forward. Adric babbled words she barely perceived with ears of flesh.

"Both sides started with the same number of craft. Most of them are accounted for. Look, I'm projecting the greatest probability according to numerical distribution of where they might have rear guards posted. If you avoid the zones in purple, we'll have less chance of being spotted."

The display was visual and she understood it without needing it explained. "Let's see how good your numbers are, Adric."

"Why not? It's not like we'd die. I guess that's the flaw in an exercise… would someone do something this crazy in a real fight?"

"It depends on why you're fighting. If it's worth your life, yes."

"The Doctor says where there's life, there's hope."

"This from the man who died the first day I met him, saving the Universe?" That self-same Universe spread itself out for Tegan's senses. The stars did not alter to her eyes, but her sensors conveyed to her the delicate friction as their speed increased. Tegan could detect the impact of space dust on the protective energy shields over the craft's skin. At these speeds they were plowing through space the same way a speedboat would move over water, or a plane the air. Only now, she was the craft.

They were going awfully fast. Adric hoped Tegan knew what she was doing. She had attuned herself to the ship systems to a level he was reluctant to match. Tactically, it proved sound. They gained so much velocity from their run in that the rear guards couldn't block them. A few long-range energy beams grazed them but didn't hinder them as they blasted into the goal zone and out the other side. Tegan immediately flipped the craft over, but even the main thrusters took a while to kill their velocity in that direction. Amber communications lights were blinking furiously on their control panels.

"Maybe we shouldn't have done that, Tegan." Adric's second thoughts, never hasty to arrive, had finally shown up yawning and rubbing grit from their eyes.

"I forgot we were hiding. I forgot… I'm not really flying this craft, you know. Not all of my own. I couldn't do it without the support of the flight computer. But it felt so good. I wanted to fly. I wanted to win. Seems silly now."

Adric faked a transmission breakdown rather than try to answer the increasingly urgent queries being sent them. "I wanted to win too." After a few moments silence while they headed back to retribution, he added, "It's a dumb game at that. A real battle in space would never be so rigid. We only got past because I knew how many enemies there were and in what space they had to be. After that it wasn't hard to calculate where the ones we didn't have a fix on might be."

"And you were right, but I don't think they want to give either of us badges for mathematical excellence."

Adric fingered his own badge. "The Doctor is going to be furious."

"I'd rather be scolded than shot as an enemy alien." Tegan had a point.

"They know we're not Jangsi. Someone finally noticed the anomalies in the pilot database. So getting shot at is quite likely. However, we have to go back in because we will certainly run out of fuel and air within the next hour."

"That last run and the turnover burnt up a lot of fuel. Sorry."

"That's why the others didn't use the tactic. It worked, though. But they won't be grateful we won. People never are when they find out you're cleverer than they are." It was the story of Adric's life, really.

"That'll be a new experience."

"It's an old one for me. But… it's a wonderful craft, isn't it?"

"She's a sweet flyer," Tegan said wistfully.

"Even if there is a monomolecular data link inserted in our brains."

"… _what_?"

* * *

Epilogue

Tegan and Adric climbed out of the fighter and straight into the arms of Jangsi security. The fighter wasn't carrying live weapons even if they'd wanted to fight. Worse, the Doctor had come looking for them. They were indeed in a lot of trouble, no one was grateful they'd won the war game, and the Doctor yelled enough to get that squeaky note in his voice. His clever negotiations made sure they were locked up unharmed. Then, as was his invariable habit, not unlike a drug addiction, the Doctor broke them out of jail. After that, it took only a bit of corridor running to put them all back in the TARDIS and safely dematerialized.

It couldn't be said that Adric and Tegan became bosom friends after this incident, but they had a bit more respect for each other.

The End


End file.
